Leader’s Arrest in Ivory Coast Ends Standoff

Laurent Gbagbo and his wife, Simone, were guarded by United Nations security officials at the Golf Hôtel in Abidjan.Credit
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

This article is by Adam Nossiter, Scott Sayare and Dan Bilefsky.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — The strongman of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, was captured and taken into custody by his rival on Monday, ending a four-month standoff that left hundreds dead in this once-prosperous West African nation, put international diplomacy to a severe test and ultimately dragged the country back into civil war.

With French helicopters in the skies nearby, Mr. Gbagbo surrendered to his rival’s forces as they stormed his residence, sending his chief of staff outside to signal his defeat.

“The fighting is over,” Mr. Gbagbo said on his rival’s television station after his arrest. “So he went out with a white handkerchief. The fighting is over.”

For months, African diplomats and heads of state had shuttled back and forth to Abidjan, pleading with Mr. Gbagbo to step down after losing a presidential election last year. The United Nations, the United States and the European Union demanded his resignation, imposing severe economic sanctions that crippled the economy — but failed to push Mr. Gbagbo from power.

On Sunday night and into Monday morning, the helicopters hovered near the presidential offices and the palatial residence where Mr. Gbagbo had been holed up with his wife underground for days, firing missile blasts that were officially aimed at destroying the heavy weapons outside, but also reduced parts of Mr. Gbagbo’s last redoubts to smoking rubble.

Photo

Some residents celebrated the surrender and arrest of Laurent Gbagbo in Abidjan. But in parts of the city the reaction was subdued after days of urban warfare.Credit
Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press

United Nations and French officials, wary of being seen as exceeding their mandate by enforcing regime change, insisted that their actions were solely intended to protect civilians, entirely independent of the final push to capture Mr. Gbagbo by his rival’s forces.

“There was not one single French soldier in the residence,” said Cmdr. Frédéric Daguillon, a French military spokesman in Abidjan.

But they readily acknowledged that the international strikes had broken Mr. Gbagbo’s defenses, leaving him open to capture.

Alain Le Roy, head of the United Nations peacekeeping operations, said the strike on Mr. Gbagbo’s heavy weapons may have helped clear the way for his rivals to storm the residence. But he stressed that there had been no coordination between United Nations forces and those of Mr. Ouattara and that the United Nations’ aim had been wholly geared toward protecting civilians.

Similarly, a French military spokesman, Thierry Burkhard, said Mr. Gbagbo’s enemies had “taken advantage” of the French and United Nations attacks to launch their own.

“He was really weakened by the strikes,” said Hamadoun Touré, a spokesman for the United Nations operation in Ivory Coast.

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French forces in southern Ivory Coast on Monday.Credit
Luc Gnago/Reuters

President Obama commended the French and the United Nations, saying Mr. Gbagbo’s “illegitimate claim to power has finally come to an end.” The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called the arrest “the end of a chapter that should never have been.”

But the arrest did not spell the end of the crisis, analysts warned. The airstrikes by France and the United Nations were expected to infuriate the many Gbagbo supporters who have embraced his anti-Western fervor. Even though Mr. Ouattara is recognized internationally as the winner of last year’s election, Gbagbo supporters may now have even more reason to see him as illegitimate, forced upon them by outside intervention.

Mr. Ouattara’s standing overseas will be also be tested by accusations that forces loyal to him killed hundreds of civilians as they swept across the country, weakening his reputation as the one with the higher moral ground in the standoff.

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“Our country has just turned a painful page of its history,” Mr. Ouattara said in a televised address Monday night. He insisted that Mr. Gbagbo’s safety was being guaranteed, but announced that he would request that judicial proceedings be opened against Mr. Gbagbo, his wife and “all those who have been apprehended.” They will receive “dignified treatment,” and their rights will be respected, he vowed.

“I therefore call upon all my compatriots who might be seized by a feeling of vengeance to abstain from any act of reprisal or violence,” Mr. Ouattara said.

After his arrest, Mr. Gbagbo was taken with his wife to the Golf Hôtel, the shabby lagoon-side resort where he had blockaded Mr. Ouattara for four months. In another strange reversal, Mr. Le Roy said that Mr. Gbagbo and his wife, Simone, were now being guarded by the same United Nations officials who had previously been protecting Mr. Ouattara.

Video

TimesCast | Laurent Gbagbo Captured

After the recent intervention by U.N. and French forces, Ivory Coast's former leader was captured by his political rival, Alassane Ouattara.

Images broadcast on Ivorian television showed a sweating, plaintive Mr. Gbagbo after his arrest. At one point, he appeared in a white tank-top undershirt, wiping dry his face and underarms with a towel as men dressed in camouflage looked on, smiling.

In parts of Abidjan the reaction was subdued. Few were out after days of urban warfare that had kept the city’s residential areas in lockdown and provoked a serious humanitarian crisis. Water and food are lacking. Sporadic bursts of gunfire could still be heard, and both Mr. Ouattara’s government and the United Nations said a top priority was disarming the thousands of militant youths given weapons by Mr. Gbagbo. Bodies still spilled out of bombed-out vehicles on the city’s eerily deserted highways.

“We are going out a little bit, taking advantage of this little wind of liberty,” said Latif Ganiyou, a resident of Cocody, where the climactic battle for Mr. Gbagbo’s residence took place. “We’re breathing a little again. The fear is gone, and we are relieved.”

In the Abobo district, though, where Mr. Gbagbo focused his bloody campaign of armed repression against Ouattara supporters, there was jubilation. For weeks the neighborhood lived in terror of the descents of Mr. Gbagbo’s troops, ride-throughs in which guns crackled and citizens fell dead in the dusty streets.

“In Abobo, people are dancing and singing,” said a resident, Ahmed Fofana. “It’s like a holiday, really a great holiday. Everybody is out. I’m so happy, I hardly know how to express my joy.”

In his speech Monday night, Mr. Ouattara, subdued after months of fear and uncertainty, promised a new beginning for the country.

“Today a white page opens in front of us, white like the white of our flag, symbol of hope and peace,” Mr. Ouattara said in his flat, precise voice. He called for “reconciliation and forgiveness.”

His rough-looking soldiers in knitted caps, former rebels from the 2002 uprising that split the country, chanted victory songs softly on the grounds of the hotel.

Adam Nossiter reported from Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Scott Sayare from Paris; and Dan Bilefsky from the United Nations.

A version of this article appears in print on April 12, 2011, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Leader’s Arrest In Ivory Coast Ends Standoff. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe